Call me a Lucky Duck!

I admit I have been such a lucky duck lately! I have received lots of lots of lovely gifts from both my lovely real life friends and sweet blog friends am feeling like I already had a Christmas! Most of the gifts were for my birthday (thank you girls!), and others are something that had arrived way before and I had been meaning to share with you! I'll be focusing on only handmade gifts and vintage gifts just because I know that's what many of you are most interested in ;)

Those caramels above were made by the lovely Sam! I literally had no idea how HUGE of a difference there is between store-bought caramels and handmade caramels until I had her caramels! They melt so nicely in the mouth and taste just delicious. Both Joe and I became such a big fan of her dessert instantly! In case you are curious, the cups and the saucers are from Afternoon Tea shop, one of my favorite shops in Japan! I have a record of never leaving a store without snatching up something, which I don't know if I should state this proudly lol.


This tote was made by the sweet Claire. How clever is it to iron-transfer the nice crown on the tote and add the beautiful fabric flower and the ruffle! I love the English-ness so much! I have never been to England but it sure has become one of the top countries to visit for me! I have 'met' many lovely English people, enjoy so many movies/shows that take place there (The Game of Thrones to name one), and just love the designs that come out of the country that are everywhere in Japan! Silly of me, but I feel that I am one step closer to being in England if I carry this bag around. A girl can dream, can't she?


Here is another creation of Claire I am so lucky to call mine! She has such a beautiful blog where you can find a tutorial on it here. I love everything she makes and am dying to see the projects she has been working on for her etsy shop's re-launch! This bunting has already found a place to be hung in our apartment. So lovely!


I have been wanting to talk about my friends Kerry and Penny's new patterns launch! I am sure most of you know about their Sew-Ichigo already and how cute of paper-pieced block patterns they have come up with! Not only are they both uber talented, they are such sweet sweet people! Kerry and Penny made my heart sing by using my tutorials to showcase their cute blocks in projects! What I didn't know until I checked the mail today was both their cute projects made ways to my little apartment!!! I had NO idea that they were heading my way!!! I am so happy!!! The fabric box above was made by Kerry. Can you see how she did such a lovely way to showcase the buttons inside the box??? Every one of these buttons are just precious!!! I'll have to think of a way to use this box without covering up the bottom completely ;)


This is a fabric basket Penny made! See how cute it is to see the spool, button, spool, button... on the basket?? How stinkin' CUTE?! I just love that their patterns are so versatile! I can think of so many projects using these patterns! I would really like to make a sewing cover with these blocks and a mini quilt!! If you have yet to snatch up your copy of Sew-Ichigo's new patterns, you can do so here on their blog!


This is how they look together. So cute, aren't they?


Here are such fun gifts from my friend Mary! She has made me so many nice things!! I treasure every one of them because everything she makes shows that she knows my colors and my taste in fabric/designs and everything!! I can't believe she re-purposed those thrifted boxes into such beauties! Inside the sewing box was a penguin necklace among others, that is even too cute to wear!


Elnora is absolutely amazing. She is such an inspirational person for me for so many reasons! She is so encouraging, supportive, thoughtful, and most definitely extremely creative! I have always admired her works as all her projects are very eye-pleasing, made with lots of thoughts, and executed professionally, which I am sure you can agree if you see this house pouch and the coasters!! I swear I'll never be able to place a cup on any of these cups for even a second.. ever!!!!


Last but not least is this mini quilt that was made by Kaelin! Ever since she posted a picture of this quilt on her blog, I was drooling over it and getting jealous of whoever it was destined to. Joe suspected it could possibly be mine, but I told him to stop teasing me so I won't get my hopes up. So you can imagine how I had a big squeal when I opened the package and found this lovely in it!!! Kaelin and I have talked about our love for Japanese cherry blossoms before. How lovely is she to remember that and to make a quilt for me to hang in my craft room!! I feel so lucky that it is sooo mine!!!


One of the things I am very much looking forward to when I see Kaelin in person is to hear her say my name in the southern accent! She did an awesome job to change the last letter from i to m so to reduce syllables in my name! I am so loving my new name!! Joe and I were talking about what would happen if we moved to the south in America today. (We give each other this kind of random questions all the time.) I told him that the first thing I would is to introduce myself as Ayums, hehe ;)

Before I head bed, I want to show you some gorgeous vintage goodies that made ways as gifts!



Beautifully hand-stitched coffee grinder tea towel from Krista!


Lovely apron from Penny!


And this adorable embroidered seven dwarfs from Kerry!! They are all so special!


Thank you for reading such a lengthy blogpost ;)

I hope you are having a lovely week so far! I'm off to bed!

xo!